The Swiss consumed the most chocolate and produced the most Nobel Laureates.

The Germans and British also regularly indulged in chocolate while churning out top prizes for academic excellence.

The Swedish anomaly

However, Sweden presented Messerli with an anomaly. Its chocolate consumption was relatively low, but it was producing the second highest number of Nobel Laureates.

“Sweden should have produced 14 Nobel Laureates, yet we observe 32,” said Messerli

He put this down to potential favoritism or Swedish sensitivity to chocolate.

“One cannot quite escape the notion that either the Nobel Committee in Stockholm has some inherent patriotic bias when assessing the candidates for these awards or, perhaps, that the Swedes are particularly sensitive to chocolate, and even minuscule amounts greatly enhance their cognition,” he said.

Does chocolate create smarties?

The amount of chocolate required to boost the odds of getting a call to travel to Stockholm are unclear, said Messerli.

How much chocolate Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and other winners of the coveted Nobel Prize actually ate is also unknown.

Socio-economic factors that give nations greater access to chocolate were omitted from the study.